Revision as of 20:37, 24 July 2013

Dachau, [1] is a city of about 43,000 citizens in Bavaria, Germany and has a history of more than 1,200 years. In former times Dachau had always been a retreat for Bavarian kings, dukes and nobility, the castle and the surrounding gardens offering a staggering view on the Alps and Munich, weather permitting. Dachau became a town famous for its impressionist painters from the second half of the 19th century on. With the advent of the Nazi regime, Dachau in 1933 was chosen as site for the very first Nazi concentration camp. This has cast a pall over the rest of this small and pleasant town on the outskirts of Munich. Dachau served as a camp for political prisoners mainly and finally ended up being a staging ground to ship prisoners to eastern death camps in Poland and elsewhere, though approx. 42,000 people were murdered at the camp itself and its 169 sub-camps.
Today Dachau has a big cultural scene as well as a still impressive picture-perfect old town and castle. The concentration camp remains as a memorial to its dark history is maintained and visited by thousands every year.

Gates of the concentration camp (Arbeit Macht Frei meaning "work will set you free")

Contents

Get in

Public Transportation

The S2 trains from Munich run to the center of town. Once you get off at the Dachau stop you take a shuttle bus 724 or 726 that stop near the entrance of the memorial site ("KZ-Gedenkstätte"). Remember you can have up to 5 people on one train ticket so if you are with a group make sure you purchase the group rate, i.e. the Bayern Ticketfor 5 people for all transport within Bavaria for one day.

Train

Regional trains run from Munich central station (Hauptbahnhof) three times per hour and take 25 mins to reach Dachau.

Guided tours for individuals (3€; 11 a.m. and 1 p.m.; book in advance)

Guided tours for groups (65€ for up to 30 people; book in advance)

Several tours run from Munich costing about 20€, including transportation.[3][4][5],

Dachau Old Town

City Hall

Dachau Castle

Castle Garden

Do

The Dachau Painting Gallery (Dachauer Gemäldegalerie in German) has a representative permanent collection of typical landscape and genre paintings of the 19th and early 20th century. Dachau was the site of one of the most important - in terms of art history - German artist colonies at that time, which had a large impact on the development of modern art in the 20th century. Famous painters, such as Christian Morgenstern, Carl Spitzweg, Eduard Schleich the Elder or Adolf Hölzel, Ludwig Dill and Arthur Langhammer prized the moor landscape of Dachau as an attractive motif. Special exhibitions vary.[6]

The District Museum of Dachau (Bezirksmuseum in German), which received the Bavarian Museum Award in 1993, reflects the cultural history of the town of Dachau and the surrounding county. On three floors you find numerous impressive exhibits illustrating settlement forms and town history, guild and market law, crafts and trade, everyday life and festive traditions, religious folklore and much more. Special exhibitions deal with various aspects of cultural history.